


A Haunting

by Darci



Category: Over the Garden Wall (Cartoon & Comics)
Genre: Character Study, Depression, PTSD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-04
Updated: 2020-02-04
Packaged: 2021-02-27 19:12:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 787
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22550785
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Darci/pseuds/Darci
Summary: He doesn’t think he’s strong enough to carry the magic on his own.
Comments: 4
Kudos: 56





	A Haunting

He asks Greg, “Do you remember the husking bee, and the skeletons dressed in pumpkins and corn husks?”

He asks, “Do you remember the frogs who danced on the ferry? The band and the policemen and the ladies in dresses- but they were all frogs?”

Greg used to say he remembered. He used to babble on about the turtles and the schoolhouse and the cloud people. He doesn’t say that anymore. Now he shrugs and says, “That was a weird dream,” and then goes on to babble about something else.

Wirt isn’t surprised. The world is magical enough to Greg already, every sunbeam and croaking frog cause for joy. What is an enchanted forest to Greg? Not worth much, apparently, and he had been too young. But the weight of that wonderful wood is heavy on Wirt’s shoulders. He’s twenty now, not a child, but he doesn’t think he’s strong enough to carry the magic on his own.

He doesn’t want to.

He used to tell the stories to Greg, when they returned from the wood. They reminisced together, treading the same paths over and over to imprint the stories in their minds. He doesn’t tell the stories anymore, but he can feel the words on his tongue. They beg to go somewhere. He can see the images on the backs of his eyelids, when he blinks or sleeps. Sometimes he thinks sounds leak through too; once he thought he heard schoolchildren singing “Potatoes and Molasses” and he had frozen into an icy statue before the world cleared and he realized there had been no singing at all.

He plays the old music on his clarinet. He writes songs for the forever-autumn between-world, all orange leaves in chilly wind and talking animals and lurking darkness. He tries to draw his memories back to life with pencil and paint. He quickly finds that he lacks talent and hires an art student to draw for him. He tells her it’s for a children’s book he’s writing; she gushes over his creativity and encourages him to publish his yet-unwritten book. He considers following through but when he sits at the computer and puts his fingers against the dead plastic keys he goes empty. The clamoring words disappear and he wants to throw his computer away.

He wishes The Unknown would leave him alone. He wishes he could be like Greg and forget. The only places he feels at home now are in graveyards and in overgrown forests. He’d been so hopeful when they first returned to the land of the living, so confident and ready to move forward, but now he finds he’s being dragged back to the dark forest. The Beast, the edelwoods, the pumpkin folk-- they will have him in the end.

He tosses a penny into a fountain and wishes to live again.

On a frigid Halloween night he stands next to an ice-spattered river and wishes to die.

He plays his clarinet, composes his songs. He doesn’t write. Is this life? Was it worth it?

His mom and step-dad fret over him. He’s behind in all his classes. Greg sounds guarded when Wirt calls home, and he knows things are bad when even Greg is upset. He turns a penny in his hand, presses it to his palm. Somewhere a bluebird sings.

He takes a bus out of the city. His brown canvas bag is next to him, stuffed full of songs and of the art student’s beautiful drawings. He exits the bus at a dreary depot on a raggedy main street. The tarmac is cracked and uneven, the buildings droop sleepily. He walks. The forest in the distance bobs closer with every step.

He is not a lover or a pilgrim, he decides. He is a wanderer, stuck between worlds. He’s tired of being stuck, neither dead nor alive.

The trees (not edelwoods, he notes) are barren and bent over him. Their dry branches creak over his head. He’s left a note for Greg. He wrote not to worry, he’ll return after he’s put The Unknown to rest. He’s not sure how to bring The Unknown to him, but he knows how to get himself to The Unknown. It will still take him, it must, it _wants_ him…

Wirt lies down on the papery leaves. Cold seeps up from the ground, through his jacket and directly into his bones. He rests his head on his bag. His teeth chatter and it isn’t long before his fingers and lips are numb.

 _Come on, come on_ , he prays. Twilight is falling. A bluebird (they’re all bluebirds to Wirt) chatters, her song unearthly and huge in the quiet wood.

Wirt closes his eyes and waits for the Beast.

**Author's Note:**

> I know OtGW ended on a hopeful note but I couldn't stop thinking about how the whole experience would affect Wirt in the long run and it... wasn't great. Sorry!


End file.
